A study conducted by Dr. Shanna Swan reveals that toxicants present in the environment have been adversely affecting human beings’ ability to reproduce.
Dr. Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine in New York, in her latest book "Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race," revealed that drastic increase in the environmental pollution is causing a drop in humans’ fertility rates. She uses her research to explain how the phenomenon has also caused a shrinkage in penis sizes and women's sexual desires.
According to Dr. Swan’s research, invisible chemicals present in dust, plastics, and adhesives are dangerously responsible for disrupting human beings’ hormone balance. It is causing a drop in sperm counts, plummeting reproductive ability in grownups, children, and babies to be born, and also smaller penises.
The sperm counts have dropped almost 60% since 1973 or at an average of 1.25% drop per year, her research explains.
"If you look at the curve on sperm count and project it forward — which is always risky — it reaches zero in 2045," Swan told Axios. "That's a little concerning, to say the least," she added.
Dr. Swan found that the responsible pollutants called the Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) can be found in items that we use in our day-to-day life. Household products such as cleaning products, electronics, plastic containers, shampoos, and skincare products contain these disruptive chemicals. The PFAS found in these items do not degrade and have the ability to build up in one’s body and persist over time causing harms that can be irreparable.
"Scientists have found these substances in the blood of nearly all the people they tested in the US," The Guardian stated. "It is virtually present in the bodies of every human. It’s found in fish deep in the sea, and birds flying high in the sky," the outlet reported.
This pollution is not just limited to affect men’s sperm counts and penis sizes, women’s sexual desires are also deeply impacted by this phenomenon, Dr. Swan explains in the book. She points out research conducted on workers in China which revealed the presence of higher levels of bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, in their blood which will more likely result in sexual problems, including reduced desire.
The pollution is also causing a significant drop in fertility rates, Dr. Swan writes.
"In some parts of the world, the average twentysomething woman today is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35," she said.
In order to curb the effects of these pollutants on human beings, Dr. Swan urges people to reduce the usage of plastics and switch to organic products. Avoiding packaged food and buying antibiotic-free meat and eating home-cooked food can reduce chemical exposure, she says. Using homemade cleaning products can make a big difference to help bring down the level of these harmful chemicals from our environment.
The FDA has not yet set a ban or restriction on the use of phthalates in food and cosmetic plants. So, Dr. Swan says it is up to the consumers to choose what is right for them.
"What we really need is for the chemical industry to adopt its own version of the Hippocratic oath - 'first, do no harm,'" Swan writes.
Swan also hopes the governmental agencies to consider the exposure as a crisis to human existence and take necessary actions to save the planet from possible extinction.
"The current state of reproductive affairs can’t continue much longer without threatening human survival. It’s a global existential crisis," she says.
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